Inarius was an Archangel of the High Heavens, once part of the Angiris Council as an advisor to the main council. He, along with other Angels and Demons, were sick of fighting in the endless Eternal Conflict, so they banded together and left Heaven and Hell with Inarius and Lilith as the renegade leaders. Together, the various Demons and Angels created a world of their own known as Sanctuary, and also created the first born humans known as the nephalem. Inarius would rule over Sanctuary until the end of the Sin War when he was defeated and given to Mephisto. His current fate is unknown, though he is assumed to be alive.

And in announcing it to himself, he felt a rush of jubilation. He was again Inarius, once of the Angiris Council, once a commander of the Heavenly Hosts! Once a rebel against both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells …[1]

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Inarius had grown tired of the constant conflict between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. Even though the armies had fought since the dawn of time, not much was gained. He wished he was in-charge of the Angiris Council so he could do things differently. He even tried to reason with Tyrael, his brother, that the conflict was leading them nowhere. [2]

Soon, he found that there were many that shared his beliefs, not only within the Host's ranks itself, but in the Burning Hells too. The leader of hell's resistance was the demoness Lilith, daughter of the Lord of Hatred, Mephisto. She, like Inarius, had been contemplating a world where demons could live peacefully without any interference, demonic or angelic. Inarius immediately took a liking towards the demoness, and together they stole the Worldstone from Pandemonium and hid it in an alternate dimension. There they created a new world and named it Sanctuary. The Worldstone kept the world hidden from the vision of Heaven and Hell and would do so for a long time to come.

As the angels and demons worked the Worldstone to form Sanctuary, Inarius secretly fooled all the other renegades and tied the Worldstone's power to himself. This enhanced his powers unimaginably and made him the strongest being on Sanctuary and the de facto ruler.[3]

Inarius and Lilith became lovers, like many more angel-demon pairs. This union of angels and demons spawned the nephalem (meaning first-born), the first humans.[4]

The nephalem, born of both angel and demon, were discovered to be quite powerful. Inarius foresaw the strength the nephalem might someday possess, and thus declared them abominations and, as the most powerful of the renegades, demanded they be exterminated. Lilith, returning to her manipulative and deceitful ways, jumped upon what she saw as an opportunity. She planned to use the power of the nephalem to build an army with herself as the leader and crush both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. Realizing that no one could forcefully stop Inarius, she instead set out to brutally murder every single angel and demon on Sanctuary other than Inarius and herself, hoping that for fear of being left all alone on Sanctuary, Inarius would be forced to spare the nephalem.

When Inarius discovered her heinous act he banished her to the void to be trapped in darkness for eternity. But with only himself and the nephalem left alive on Sanctuary, Inarius changed his plans and allowed them to live so he wouldn't have to live alone. But he also altered the purpose of the Worldstone so that it would supress the powers of the nephalem. Each successive generation thereafter became less and less powerful until centuries later all of their magical powers had disappeared and what remained were normal humans.

Somewhere at this time Sanctuary was discovered by the Burning Hells. Just as Inarius had done before them the Three realized the potential in the nephalem and created the Triune to subvert humanity to their cause.

To counter this threat while still keeping the High Heavens unaware of Sanctuary's presence, Inarius disguised himself as the Prophet and created the Cathedral of Light in his own image. It was an order bent on projecting himself as all-knowing and omnipresent. He was a god in his own maniacal mind, declaring that Sanctuary and the very lives of humans only existed because he willed it so. Both Inarius and the Prime Evils knew that if the Angiris Council were to discover the new world, Sanctuary itself would become a battlefield for the Eternal Conflict as each side attempted to exploit its resources to use against the opposition. Because of that fact, each side vied for control of Sanctuary through very subtle manipulation, trying to gain the loyalty of the nephalem while keeping them entirely ignorant to the enormity of their actions.

After a few centuries, all was well in Sanctuary. The humans prospered on their own as merchants or farmers and created various size cities so their civilizations might live more conveniently. The periodic but diplomatic conflicts between the Cathedral of Light and the Temple of the Triune were ignorable, because of both sides needing to lay low to not provoke the Angiris Council.

However, Lilith miraculously escaped from the void (it is not known how) and immediately returned to her former plan. She realized the powers of the nephalem had been entirely diminished because of Inarius' alteration of the Worldstone. Recognizing an army of powerless humans was useless, she journeyed to the Worldstone chamber and cast a spell upon the Worldstone. Lilith's spell did quite the opposite of Inarius' original alteration, awakening the powers of the nephalem very quickly (and later even faster as Uldyssian altered the essence of the Worldstone).[5] She journeyed into Sanctuary in search of a (very distant) descendant of Inarius whom she planned to manipulate. She assisted in awakening the powers of one Uldyssian ul-Diomed, who created an army of similarly awakened humans called the edyrem that accepted Uldyssian and his goals as their own.

Uldyssian and his army of edyrem marched across the world battling to cleanse it of the Triune and later the Cathedral. During Uldyssian's quest to rid Sanctuary of both angel and demon Inarius realized he was being outmaneuvered by Uldyssian. Delusional as he was, Inarius thought he was "above" confronting Uldyssian himself and so sent his most trusted priest, Gamuel as an assassin. Gamuel with Inarius' help succeeded in killing Uldyssian, but just as death was spreading through Uldyssian he concentrated the sensation in his hands and pushed it into Gamuel effectively killing the assassin. Fearing something drastic must be done to gain control of Sanctuary, Inarius made a pact with the Lord of Terror himself, Diablo. The pact included allowing Malic, a former priest of the Triune, to attempt putting his very spirit into the body of Uldyssian and in that way gain control of him. The plan failed and Inarius finally came to the realization that he must confront Uldyssian and the edyrem directly. Some time after Inarius' assassination attempt, Rathma came to him with the information that the High Heavens had discovered Sanctuary and at that very moment were on their way to destroy it. He proposed an alliance between the edyrem and the Cathedral of Light, but Inarius was already driven mad by all of the recent events and could not see that preserving Sanctuary from destruction was more important than defeating Uldyssian and the edyrem. Furious at Rathma and because of his unwillingness to admit his sins, Inarius cast him into the void like his mother before him.

After Uldyssian's edyrem clashed with and destroyed Inarius' inquisitors, Inarius finally descended from his tower and confronted Uldyssian and his army. Inarius first used his overwhelming presence as an angel in an attempt to convert the edyrem to his side. Uldyssian quickly used his bond to the edyrem to flush them with confidence and outsmarted Inarius. Both Uldyssian and Inarius used magic leading up to and during the battle but when facing each other one on one, they simply relied on infusing their bodies with magic and brawling. Even though Inarius was bonded to the Worldstone and therefore exponentially more powerful than a normal angel, Uldyssian could hold his own. This caused Inarius to lose confidence and slowly he gave way to Uldyssian's attacks. As they fought, there was a tear in the sky as the armies of angels finally entered Sanctuary. In his madness, Inarius was only concerned with destroying Uldyssian no matter what cost and therefore ignored the armies of angels. Uldyssian was distracted by the armies and Inarius seized the opportunity. Inarius grabbed the human ready to strike the final blow but just as he was about to, Uldyssian's entire body infused with energy. Inarius sensed Uldyssian was doing something drastic and he was right. Uldyssian changed the very essence of the Worldstone, destroying the bond it shared with Inarius. Without his bond to the Worldstone, Inarius was drastically weaker and Uldyssian easily defeated him, capturing him in a prison. Afterwards, Uldyssian sent both angels and demons from Sanctuary and the Angiris Council convened to decide the fate of the nephalem as well as Inarius. The council agreed to an armistice between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells to allow time for the nephalem to mature and decide for themselves which side they would aid. In this deal, Inarius was also taken into Mephisto's custody, presumably to be tortured for all eternity.

He bound Inarius with tremendous chains and slowly tore the wings from the back of the angel. Great barbed hooks were then used to stretch out the once glowing skin and his features were distorted by vile powers. Many of the followers of Inarius were given as gifts to Baal and Diablo, but the rest were molded to match the bloated image of the now crippled angel. To this day, Inarius said to be trapped in Hell within a chamber of mirrors, his eyelids torn from his face as he is forced to gaze upon his misshapen form for all eternity. His misguided followers now serve as Hell's taskmaster taking the anguish of their lost glory out upon the bodies of others.[6]

In the lore from Diablo I, Mephisto apparently turned Inarius and his followers into Overlords after the angel had assaulted a temple belonging to Mephisto. But this doesn't quite fit with The Sin War trilogy in which Mephisto took Inarius as part of a bargain with the Angiris Council.

The Black Road mentions that the followers of Inarius (the Seraphs) were turned to Mephisto's side by the Demon Lord Kabraxis, which may explain the creation of the Overlords. Since after the Sin War, the memories of the humans were wiped off, the binding of Inarius may just be a huge historical error where the entire events of the Sin War are summarized as just the punishment Inarius got for destroying one of Mephisto's temples.

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